Sinosplice is 10 years old

by John Pasden

16 Apr 2012

It’s hard for me to believe, but the Sinosplice blog is already 10 years old today. My first post was April 16th, 2002. You can see 10 years of blog posts all on one page.

Through my early “China is so crazy” observations, to my English teaching posts, to my move from Hangzhou to Shanghai, through my Chinese blogging experiment, to my 3 years in grad school in Shanghai, to a stronger focus on Chinese pedagogy and technology, the only thing that’s really remained constant has been the “China” angle.

But what do I take away from the experience after blogging here for 10 years? Well, it was totally worth it. It wasn’t always easy to keep blogging all these years, but I’m totally glad I have. I frequently tell people that this is one of the single most rewarding activities I’ve ever devoted time to. It’s not that it was non-stop fun, or that it made me rich or made me into a great writer, but it’s connected me with people in ways I never expected. I met some of my best friends through my blog. I got my job at ChinesePod in 2006 through my blog. I’ve made many professional contacts through my blog, and it’s a great channel for new clients to discover my work at AllSet Learning. None of this was planned!

Nowadays blogging feels very corporate, or if independent, usually highly niche. When you look at the Sinosplice blog archive as a whole, it’d be hard say my blog is niche, because it’s changed so much over the years. Content, design, readers… it just keeps changing. I think a certain degree of flexibility with one’s theme is an important ingredient to keeping a blog alive long-term; when you’re overly focused you can write yourself into a corner and run out of things to say (or you just get bored).

So I’d just like to end this post by saying thank you to my readers, past and present, and to encourage those of you out there to put your voice online if you’re at all tempted. You don’t have to have an amazing start, and you don’t even have to be fiercely niche, but somewhere along the way you may find you have a lot to say, and keeping at it can really pay off in unexpected ways.

Happy birthday Sinosplice! John, your blog was one of the first I read, even before coming to China. It’s been a constant source of information, humour and entertainment. Thanks for that!

I also echo your sentiments about the rewarding nature of blogging, as I’ve benefited from it in much the same way you have — especially having met some amazing people, yourself included, because of it.

Thanks, everybody! One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that my readers get nicer and nicer. There was a time (years ago) when it almost felt like the only people reading my blog posts were trolls. This is way better! 🙂

Happy Blogoversary!
This blog was a major influence in me deciding to take up Chinese, and since it lead me to this terrifying and wonderful country I do feel a kind of connection to it, so congratulations on ten years, and good luck on the next ten!

Nice work, John! I don’t know if Skritter would ever have made it off the ground without you basically launching it right here on Sinosplice. May your blog ever hone its edge and grow its power until people worldwide know about China firstly as “that place from Sinosplice.”

Congrat on 10 years! It’s been fun, informative, and fascinating following your exploits and evolution the past decade. Thanks again to Sinosplice for helping fan the flames of my Sinophilia, spurring me to actually learning Chinese, and for being such a great resource on the language, country, and culture. Here’s to ten more!

Congrats! It’s not easy to keep a blog alive and relevant for that long. Have always enjoyed reading it, as well as your work on ChinesePod, and look forward to continuing, as long as you keep blogging.

[…] a few weeks ago this blog reached a milestone that I was reminded of a couple days ago when I saw this post about the 10-year anniversary of Sinosplice, one of my long-time favorite blogs. I had missed my own anniversary, which I’ll try to […]

Would you believe I have read all 10 years worth of Sinosplice blog posts this year?

Had been vaguely aware of this blog for ages. Read the first few 2002 posts at the end of the Christmas holidays. Just kept going, mostly reading the blog on my phone during commute type downtime. Finished all 10 years worth (apart from the last couple) just a couple of weeks before the anniversary.

It probably took a few months for you to hit your stride, but from then up until a couple of years ago, it actually reads really well as a whole. The blog entries are quite random taken individually; language, living in China, hobbies, family, friends, girls, study, work, religion and more. Read as a whole, I felt they they covered all the important things going on inside the head of someone living life to the full. The blog entries built up the story of your life on a day by day basis and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A couple of years ago I guess, I felt that you stopped writing on the blog about the things that were the most important to you. The blog entries were still individually interesting, but the narrative thread was lost because I no longer felt that I was reading the story of your life. I missed that to be honest, but I obviously respect your right to privacy and still appreciate and enjoy the effort you put into to this, so I read through to the end (so far).